Seeing the Light
Text: Acts 9:1-20
If you ever wondered where the phrase “seeing the light” comes from, look no further than the book of Acts. As it’s often called, the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus has all the earmarks of a dramatic story, but also has created a kind of “archetype” of what we’ve come to expect from the conversion experience. In this story, the lead character goes from Saul the great persecutor to Paul the great missionary. For many within evangelical traditions, this whole story becomes the benchmark by which everyone else’s conversion experience is measured. As I’ve said before, sometimes being too familiar with a story can make us blind to its message. Maybe we need to see it in a new light.
The story is familiar enough: Saul, a zealous persecutor of the church, on his own initiative, gathers a group to go to Damascus and root out any Christians that he might find there. On the road, he is knocked to the ground by a blinding heavenly light. In this encounter with the risen Christ, he is told to go to Damascus to meet with Ananias, who baptises him, and shares with him communion, and then Paul himself becomes a powerful missionary for the church, returning to Jerusalem where he himself now faces persecution.
We tend to get stuck on the conversion as a model for our own experience. We think that in order to become an authentic Christian, somehow the point of decision has to resemble what Saul went through. We tend to dwell on how bad we were and how our life changed once we make the choice to follow Jesus. Yet believe it or not, this is not what the story is about. This is another one of those examples where taking the story in small little slices does us a tremendous disservice, because we don’t get the whole picture… or that it’s too familiar that we think we know what it says. What about this? At no point in this story is Saul given a choice. He does not choose to become a Christian. An encounter with the risen Jesus, and suddenly everything is changed when he sees the light… or rather… when the light sees him.
As a follow-up to the Gospel of Luke, Acts is in every way a sequel, the same author, but showing that transition of the message of Jesus to the early church. It is written for a community of faith, as a way of showing how early Christianity… or the way… as they called it, was something radical and life-changing. It shows how completely unexpected and unpredictable God’s grace is, and how challenging it can be to our own sensibilities.
Saul’s conversion is just one part of a series of powerful conversion stories. In Chapter 8, we have the conversions of the Samaritans, including the dramatic change of Simon the Magician, a rival to the message of Jesus. Shortly after that, we have the conversion of a powerful Ethiopian, then Saul on the road to Damascus… but following that there is another story of a Roman centurion. These are all tales of transformation, strung together to show early Christians that God calls even the most unexpected people… even outsiders, foreigners, and enemies to become followers of Christ.
Samaritans were Jewish but did things differently, so they were outsiders… Ethiopians were also Jewish but foreigners, and looked different to them… Saul was Jewish but a powerful enemy… the Roman Centurion was a Gentile, and represented an enemy occupying force… All of these stories come together to show God’s unlimited love, and even God’s willingness to use an enemy of the church to become one of its greatest missionaries. The challenge is not for those who are experiencing this conversion, but for those who were in the early church who wanted to draw their own lines as to who was in and who was out.
So maybe we’ve missed something being so familiar with the story. Maybe it’s not about Saul’s conversion after all. Maybe it’s about something else. As much as Saul appears as the main character, the real life-changing story is about someone else: Ananias. Ananias, the non-descript disciple in Damascus and how he reacts to God’s call. In essence he’s a nobody as far as the larger story is concerned. He appears for a few verses, and then we never hear from him again… but if it was not for his actions, his choice, his response to God’s grace, Saul would have never become Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles.
In the story, Saul’s encounter on the road with the risen Christ is a prologue. The real challenge comes for Ananias, one of a handful of Christians in Damascus that Saul himself had originally set out to seek out and hunt down. Ananias has a vision, and is told that Saul is coming. Yet instead of warning him to get out or to go to safety, God tells his disciple to seek Saul out, to lay his hands upon him, and to restore his sight. Ananias initially says “Here I am.” –and yet when God tells him what he is to do, Ananias makes an understandable pause.
“Um… Lord?” Ananias protests… “Do you know who this guy is? You should! His reputation is awful! He has been imprisoning your servants in Jerusalem… he’s not a friend, he’s an enemy! I’ve heard that he’s been sent here to do the same to us! And you want me to go and heal him??”
His response, to be perfectly honest, is natural. I think it’s how any one of us would react if we were given the task of healing a sworn enemy.
But for Ananias, this is a lesson in grace and mercy. It is living out the call of Jesus to love our enemies. As Ananias learns, this isn’t some detached intellectual exercise, but a call to go, reach out to and heal someone who is clearly identified as public enemy number one. Ananias protests, but the Lord presses him on, revealing that Saul is his chosen instrument, one who will bring the light of Christ to the Gentiles… and it is not for Ananias to make that judgment call.
The struggle that Ananias has I think is one that most of us can relate to… or at very least it’s much easier to put ourselves into his shoes. How would any of us react if God called to go to someone who is a known and sworn enemy? In the midst of showing us that God is truly able to call anyone into a life of work and ministry, regardless of their background, this story challenges us to consider our own reaction. That perhaps it isn’t them who is in need of change, but our own attitudes and feelings, to assume that we know what God thinks.
How would we react if God called us to go and care for someone who is a known and sworn enemy? I think most of us would want some sort of guarantees, some sort of credentials to prove that they have changed their ways. Yet when Ananias protests, God reminds him that it’s not his call to make, nor does it belong to Ananias to demand that. All that Ananias needs to do is trust in what God is doing… Maybe that’s our lesson. Maybe that’s what Luke is trying to teach us.
In the end, Ananias relents, goes to Saul. Risking arrest, he enters into the house where Saul is staying, lays his hands upon him, baptizes him, and prepares him for his new career in ministry. No sooner does he do this then Ananias fades into the background. His own lesson learned, and teaching us something about God’s love. The story of Ananias reminds us that God can transform an enemy into a brother or sister in the faith. We can’t make that judgement call ourselves… therefore it is not for us to withhold God’s love from anyone. At the end of the story, oddly enough, it is not just Saul who sees the light; Ananias does too.
This is very much an Easter story… the beginning of a new world under the reign of God. After Easter, the world is made strange to us, rearranged, turned upside down so that God may set the world right. As part of this, God is taking enemies, and making them brothers and sisters, our challenge is to to tune into what God is doing… even in the most unexpected and unlikely of places. Our challenge, like Ananias, is to see the light that is shining in someone else’s eyes.
Amen.
If you ever wondered where the phrase “seeing the light” comes from, look no further than the book of Acts. As it’s often called, the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus has all the earmarks of a dramatic story, but also has created a kind of “archetype” of what we’ve come to expect from the conversion experience. In this story, the lead character goes from Saul the great persecutor to Paul the great missionary. For many within evangelical traditions, this whole story becomes the benchmark by which everyone else’s conversion experience is measured. As I’ve said before, sometimes being too familiar with a story can make us blind to its message. Maybe we need to see it in a new light.
The story is familiar enough: Saul, a zealous persecutor of the church, on his own initiative, gathers a group to go to Damascus and root out any Christians that he might find there. On the road, he is knocked to the ground by a blinding heavenly light. In this encounter with the risen Christ, he is told to go to Damascus to meet with Ananias, who baptises him, and shares with him communion, and then Paul himself becomes a powerful missionary for the church, returning to Jerusalem where he himself now faces persecution.
We tend to get stuck on the conversion as a model for our own experience. We think that in order to become an authentic Christian, somehow the point of decision has to resemble what Saul went through. We tend to dwell on how bad we were and how our life changed once we make the choice to follow Jesus. Yet believe it or not, this is not what the story is about. This is another one of those examples where taking the story in small little slices does us a tremendous disservice, because we don’t get the whole picture… or that it’s too familiar that we think we know what it says. What about this? At no point in this story is Saul given a choice. He does not choose to become a Christian. An encounter with the risen Jesus, and suddenly everything is changed when he sees the light… or rather… when the light sees him.
As a follow-up to the Gospel of Luke, Acts is in every way a sequel, the same author, but showing that transition of the message of Jesus to the early church. It is written for a community of faith, as a way of showing how early Christianity… or the way… as they called it, was something radical and life-changing. It shows how completely unexpected and unpredictable God’s grace is, and how challenging it can be to our own sensibilities.
Saul’s conversion is just one part of a series of powerful conversion stories. In Chapter 8, we have the conversions of the Samaritans, including the dramatic change of Simon the Magician, a rival to the message of Jesus. Shortly after that, we have the conversion of a powerful Ethiopian, then Saul on the road to Damascus… but following that there is another story of a Roman centurion. These are all tales of transformation, strung together to show early Christians that God calls even the most unexpected people… even outsiders, foreigners, and enemies to become followers of Christ.
Samaritans were Jewish but did things differently, so they were outsiders… Ethiopians were also Jewish but foreigners, and looked different to them… Saul was Jewish but a powerful enemy… the Roman Centurion was a Gentile, and represented an enemy occupying force… All of these stories come together to show God’s unlimited love, and even God’s willingness to use an enemy of the church to become one of its greatest missionaries. The challenge is not for those who are experiencing this conversion, but for those who were in the early church who wanted to draw their own lines as to who was in and who was out.
So maybe we’ve missed something being so familiar with the story. Maybe it’s not about Saul’s conversion after all. Maybe it’s about something else. As much as Saul appears as the main character, the real life-changing story is about someone else: Ananias. Ananias, the non-descript disciple in Damascus and how he reacts to God’s call. In essence he’s a nobody as far as the larger story is concerned. He appears for a few verses, and then we never hear from him again… but if it was not for his actions, his choice, his response to God’s grace, Saul would have never become Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles.
In the story, Saul’s encounter on the road with the risen Christ is a prologue. The real challenge comes for Ananias, one of a handful of Christians in Damascus that Saul himself had originally set out to seek out and hunt down. Ananias has a vision, and is told that Saul is coming. Yet instead of warning him to get out or to go to safety, God tells his disciple to seek Saul out, to lay his hands upon him, and to restore his sight. Ananias initially says “Here I am.” –and yet when God tells him what he is to do, Ananias makes an understandable pause.
“Um… Lord?” Ananias protests… “Do you know who this guy is? You should! His reputation is awful! He has been imprisoning your servants in Jerusalem… he’s not a friend, he’s an enemy! I’ve heard that he’s been sent here to do the same to us! And you want me to go and heal him??”
His response, to be perfectly honest, is natural. I think it’s how any one of us would react if we were given the task of healing a sworn enemy.
But for Ananias, this is a lesson in grace and mercy. It is living out the call of Jesus to love our enemies. As Ananias learns, this isn’t some detached intellectual exercise, but a call to go, reach out to and heal someone who is clearly identified as public enemy number one. Ananias protests, but the Lord presses him on, revealing that Saul is his chosen instrument, one who will bring the light of Christ to the Gentiles… and it is not for Ananias to make that judgment call.
The struggle that Ananias has I think is one that most of us can relate to… or at very least it’s much easier to put ourselves into his shoes. How would any of us react if God called to go to someone who is a known and sworn enemy? In the midst of showing us that God is truly able to call anyone into a life of work and ministry, regardless of their background, this story challenges us to consider our own reaction. That perhaps it isn’t them who is in need of change, but our own attitudes and feelings, to assume that we know what God thinks.
How would we react if God called us to go and care for someone who is a known and sworn enemy? I think most of us would want some sort of guarantees, some sort of credentials to prove that they have changed their ways. Yet when Ananias protests, God reminds him that it’s not his call to make, nor does it belong to Ananias to demand that. All that Ananias needs to do is trust in what God is doing… Maybe that’s our lesson. Maybe that’s what Luke is trying to teach us.
In the end, Ananias relents, goes to Saul. Risking arrest, he enters into the house where Saul is staying, lays his hands upon him, baptizes him, and prepares him for his new career in ministry. No sooner does he do this then Ananias fades into the background. His own lesson learned, and teaching us something about God’s love. The story of Ananias reminds us that God can transform an enemy into a brother or sister in the faith. We can’t make that judgement call ourselves… therefore it is not for us to withhold God’s love from anyone. At the end of the story, oddly enough, it is not just Saul who sees the light; Ananias does too.
This is very much an Easter story… the beginning of a new world under the reign of God. After Easter, the world is made strange to us, rearranged, turned upside down so that God may set the world right. As part of this, God is taking enemies, and making them brothers and sisters, our challenge is to to tune into what God is doing… even in the most unexpected and unlikely of places. Our challenge, like Ananias, is to see the light that is shining in someone else’s eyes.
Amen.
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